The answer as to why Firefox's release cycle is shortened: Mozilla love cakes

Wed, 03/23/2011 - 12:47 — John Riche

Firefox 4 has finally been released after an amazing number of Beta versions and 2 Release Candidates. It's about time! And while everyone has its idea on the number of Beta versions needed and how often a major version must be released - some find it reassuring that Firefox has had so many ones when others find it annoying and wish for a shorter release cycle - Mozilla said that Firefox 5 should be available in June 2011 after only 16 weeks of development. And we have been reminded why Mozilla has shortened its release cycle: they want more cakes from the Microsoft Internet Explorer team!

While some are wondering if the cake doesn't contain any poison, I think this is a very nice gesture from the Microsoft IE team which apparently goes back to the Firefox 2 release. Now the big question is to know how the cake will be shared amongst Firefox developers: based on the line of codes produced ? the number of bugs fixed ? or will the Mozilla head-quarters team eat it all ? Follow-up to come...

Meanwhile, congratulations to Mozilla for the Firefox 4 release and to the Microsoft IE team for the Internet Explorer 9 release as well as the nice gesture.